A no-fluff playbook for outbound sequence strategy, cold email structure, copy styles, and follow-up frameworks.
Welcome to the no-fluff, straight-to-the-point guide on mastering outbound sales development.
Look, there’s a sea of advice, some good, some bad, and some downright confusing.
This guide cuts through the noise to bring you practical strategies and tactics.
As you flip through these pages, you won’t find vague generalizations.
Instead, you’ll get down to the nuts and bolts of outreach styles, from high-volume blitzes to strategic account-based plays.
You’ll get the low-down on writing email copy that doesn’t just land in an inbox but also provokes a click, a read, and a reply.
Whether you’re a battle-hardened SDR looking for an edge or a sales leader determined to elevate your entire team, you have the right playbook.
So, forget what you think you know about outbound sales, and let’s set a new standard of excellence together.
Context is king, so before you start writing an email, you need to consider the context of the sequence.
Is this a fully automated email sequence, somewhat personalized, or bespoke?
It requires considering your desired cost to acquire a customer (CAC), the size of your market, and deciding whether to optimize for speed or conversion rate.
The determining factor here is how much time I want an SDR to invest in attempting to convert a single account.
If you choose a volume approach, you’ll be able to reach many prospects very quickly with a relatively small team.
On the other end of the spectrum, approaching the same market with an Account Based Style will deliver a much higher conversion rate.
But it requires a more experienced SDR, more supporting resources, ABM campaigns, tooling, training, and will cost more.
As deal size increases, the economics usually justify more personalization, more account research, and more time invested per account.
For simplicity’s sake, we have segmented the types of approaches into four styles.
Your outreach can exist on a sliding scale between the buckets. You also don’t have to commit to just one style at a time.
We see a lot of variety in SDRs working Lists vs. being given a list of Accounts, and there is no right or wrong answer.
List-based is faster to implement, but Account-Based will have a better conversion rate.
You can decide which is right for you now and can always change later.
Many new sales development teams start with List-Based and then transition to Account-Based when they have more than a few reps.
A List-Based approach is any method of list building where you are not starting with a given set of accounts.
With account-based workflows, leadership decides “the list” of accounts representing your TAM and assigns an SDR a subset of them to work.
The SDR is then given the flexibility to find the best way into the organization.
The volume style is all about bang for your buck.
You want to spend as little to generate as many opportunities as possible.
You must leverage technology as much as possible to scale your outreach.
This style is all about leveraging targeting to make generally written messaging seem like it was written specifically for one person.
When niching down, ask yourself: how does the context my buyer lives in change when I change one of these variables?
A common example is geography. Does a VP of Sales from SF have different demand gen needs from one in LA?
SF is the world’s startup capital. It has the shortest average tenure of an SDR and the highest average cost of an SDR.
Incorporating this context is a great way to write messaging you can send to a small group of prospects that will feel like it was written just for them.
This is when you’re researching and writing at least one piece of custom messaging for each prospect.
A general rule is that 20% of your email copy should be personalized.
You might do this for every email you send or just for your first email.
This is when you’re getting ABM support from your demand generation organization.
Campaigns are built off of internally created intent data.
The goal of the subject line is to entice people to open your email.
To achieve this, your subject line and the value proposition in the body of the email need to align perfectly.
Personalization can be a powerful tool. Instead of the overused “first name + X” format, strive to understand what the recipient genuinely cares about.
That might mean industry nuances, recent milestones, or challenges they’re grappling with.
Maintain honesty and do not resort to clickbait tactics. They might lead to an initial opening, but they won’t foster trust.
The body of the email should help recipients understand its relevance to them.
Begin by clearly introducing yourself and the reason for your outreach.
The content should resonate with the recipient, addressing their specific pain points or aspirations.
Highlight how your solution or proposition can be a game-changer for them, helping them navigate challenges or seize new opportunities.
The CTA is the culmination of your email, prompting the recipient to take the desired action.
Whether you’re inviting them for a call, urging a response, or directing them to a resource, the CTA should be lucid and unmistakable.
The Relevance style involves sharing insightful content and then probing if the problem discussed is pertinent to the recipient at that moment.
This style draws inspiration from chains of relevance, ensuring that the content resonates with the recipient’s current challenges or aspirations.
The Referral style is laser-focused on individuals adjacent to your primary buyer.
The objective is to get them to refer you to someone else or identify as the person you need to talk to.
The Garrison style is all about leading with the benefit and directly inquiring about its relevance.
The Hiring Trigger style operates on the assumption that a prospect, due to their new job role, might be experiencing certain challenges.
This email gives the reader some additional context to your first email, making them a good one-two punch.
The aim of this email is to redirect the prospect’s attention to the initial email.
They are brief and add very little to the conversation. Keep these to maximum one per sequence.
This is a final attempt to engage with a prospect who has been unresponsive.
The hope is to receive a response when the likelihood of conversion is significantly diminished.
Cold email works when every message earns its place: clear context, sharp relevance, and a next step that makes sense.
Get the PDF guideMobile: swipe left or right to flip pages. Use the section bar above the guide to jump between sections.